They might be less famous than their ground-dwelling cousins, but this is the tree kangaroo. Native to the rainforests of New Guinea and also found on the northern tip of Australia, these beautiful creatures are the only marsupials that live on trees. Remarkably, when they do descend to land, they can jump from as high as 60 feet (18 meters) and land on the ground without injuring themselves.
Sadly, despite recent evidence leading scientists to believe that tree kangaroos were found across Australia hundreds of thousands of years ago, they are now considered a globally threatened species.
There are twelve different species of tree kangaroo, ten of which are exclusively found on the island of New Guinea, and only two of which still appear in northeastern Queensland, Australia. They can grow 37-70 inches (94-179 cm) long, though over half of this length comes from their tail. Adults usually weigh between 15 and 20 pounds (7-9 kg), although they have been known to weigh in at over 30 pounds.
Little is known about tree kangaroos in the wild, largely because of how difficult they are to study due to their habitat. Distinctive long tails help them balance in the roof of the rainforest, and they are far more comfortable moving across branches than they are across the ground.
On the whole, tree kangaroos are solitary animals, but, like kangaroos and wallabies, the mother raises the offspring – or ‘joey’ – in their pouch until long after they could leave. They form a strong bond and young tree kangaroos are typically not weaned until they are a year old, and do not live independently until they are 18 months.
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Though they will spend most of their early developmental days in their mother’s pouch, leaving as almost fully grown, baby tree kangaroos are roughly the size of a kidney bean at birth. The female gestation period is only 44 days, and male tree kangaroos usually mate with several different females over the course of their lives when living in the wild.
The tree kangaroos’ diet mainly consists of leaves and moss, but they also eat tree bark and flowers. When they do leap down to the ground, it is usually to forage for more good.
Threats to the tree kangaroo have increased in recent years. Their habitat has become infringed upon due to deforestation, primarily caused by logging, but also to make room for New Guinea’s expanding coffee, rice and wheat trade. According to the WWF, the wondiwoi tree kangaroo is critically endangered, and might even now be extinct, with as few as 50 individuals still remaining. Another species in particular danger is dingiso, which, in the last 30 years alone, has seen its population decline by over 80%.
Local communities also continue to hunt tree kangaroos for food, which, in the cases of some species, has seen them pushed to the point of critical threat.
